WHITEHALL GETS THE MESSAGE

RIVERSIDE`S


FREEZING TENANTS

ASK PICKLES

TO TURN ON 

THE HEAT

T 

Riverside`s freezing tenants have now sent  an urgent message to Cabinet minister Eric Pickles (above). At their latest meeting, the tenants decided to ask him to undertake an urgent investigation into the solar panel fiasco which for the past two years has left them with unheated homes.

Twenty of the Longtown(Cumbria) tenants agreed a resolution deploring the failure of Riverside Housing Association to  end the continued distress of about sixty tenants who cannot afford to turn on their faulty central heating systems- part of the solar panel installations-because  they are astronomically too expensive to use.

The resolution, seeking an urgent investigation  into Riverside`s alleged incompetence and  alleged failure of duty of care, is being sent to Mr Pickles, the Communities and Local Government Secretary who is the  minister responsible for housing.

The meeting heard one tenant after another speak of their struggles to cope with  the rocketing energy bills.

Criticism of Riverside was stepped up when the meeting heard that the situation had now got worse. The number of tenants affected is  now actually  going up by the day because  homes containing the faulty installations, which were empty previously are now being let.

New tenants in these homes are also experiencing the same rocketing heating  bills, putting them also into debt.

The two councils-Carlisle and Cumbria- were also criticised.”For two years we have been complaining about the heating and the big bills but the two councils have done nothing to help” said one of the tenants.”We have been forced to go to Mr Pickles.

“Hopefully,  he will get something done.”

Community Voice Carlisle is the blog of Carlisle Tenants` and Residents`Federation. Information about the Federation is available on the first post of this blog, dated March 25 2013.